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Underground > Laboratory >

Instinct

07:23 / 28.01.06

I remember reading once the suggestion that the notion of 'instinct' explains nothing: its just a pseudo-explanation invoked to fill in gaps when we don't know what's going on, e.g. 'Why do birds fly south in the winter? Its instinct, innit.' Does anyone know who said this and where?

07:56 / 30.01.06

Instinct is defined by wikipedia as "the inherent disposition of a living organism toward a particular behavior".

It goes on to say that:

"In humans they are most easily observed in behaviors such as emotions, sexual drive, and other bodily functions, as these are largely biologically determined. Instinct provides a response to external stimuli, which moves an organism to action, unless overriden by intelligence, which is creative and hence far more versatile.

Since instincts take generations to adapt, an intermediate position, or basis for action, is served by memory, which provides individually stored successful reactions built upon experience. The particular actions performed may be influenced by learning, environment and natural principles."

I wouldn't say that it's correct to suggest that we call behaviour "instinct" if we don't know what it is. I'm not sure who actually said that.

Instinct is part of pre-intellectual cognition.

06:03 / 05.02.06

Its this first bit of the definition in which I'm particularly interested: "an inherent disposition". The word instinct derives, according to the OED, from the Latin instinguere meaning "to instigate", and has been used in English since the fifteenth century. It effectively postulates some innate entity lying behind the diverse range of "emotions, sexual drive, and other bodily functions". As a description of a function in an organism the word is perfectly serviceable, as the stuff about responses to external stimuli shows, but as an explanation for those particular responses it seems lacking. Invoking the word instinct suggests that a behaviour is innate, but it doesn't seem to go very far in providing an explanation of the behaviour. At least, that's how I'm interpreting my dim memory of the original quotation which, I'm starting to think, may well have been written by someone of a behaviourist inclination.

20:42 / 05.02.06

evil wrote that instinct is pre-intellectual cognition and cyberchimp that It effectively postulates some innate entity lying behind the diverse range of "emotions, sexual drive, and other bodily functions".

consciousness seems to me to be a well over rated issue - the real meat of brain science is the noncosncious stuff and 'instinct' by my reading would be the generic catch-all phrase to account for the myriad non-conscious brain behaviours. emotional responses, prejudices, our 'mindsets' as it were, predispose us to certain behaviours that aren't 'rationally' explicable.

so in a broad sense, cyberchimp, you're right that 'instinct' explains nothing - but the composite elements of what we refer to as instinct are deeply enthralling and the stuff of much intriguing science. for instance, we are coming to understand that emotional responses can form in different parts of the brain depending on the sex of the brain's host and the type of stimulus. the brainswitching phenomena i linked to here is one that regulates bodily functions in greatly subtle ways.

through investigating just what instinct is we are unravelling some of the mind's mysteries - and discovering many many more!!